


Glass Dreams (or the Four Men She Could Have Loved & the One She Did)

by treeson



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Community: hermione_smut, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-22
Updated: 2009-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:04:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treeson/pseuds/treeson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You change your life by changing your heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sheep In the Midst

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadecharmer](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jadecharmer).



> [ ](http://jadecharmer.livejournal.com/profile)
> 
> [ **jadecharmer** ](http://jadecharmer.livejournal.com/)
> 
> , I hope you enjoy the story and the fever dream that inspired it. But, seriously, I'm sorry I couldn't keep to one pairing, but yours were all on my to-do list.

x.

The headboard bangs against the wall, the edges of his vision fade black until all he can see is _her_ , _her_ , _her_. Hermione.

  
ix.

There has always been something about her. From the child she started out as, all handwaving and _look at me! Oh, please, look at me!_ to the fearsome woman she grew into, the one who sent Death Eaters to their graves and never looked back. Some hint of steel, which blossomed during the war, which has always called to some part of him.

This woman was currently underneath him, her legs shaking and her heels digging into his arse, _faster, faster_ a whispered chant in his ears.

He was always a very obliging man.

  
viii.

The first thrust is never as good as the second, when she moans and reaches for his neck, always leaving red, crescent-shaped marks that spell _Mine_ in their own secret language. He feels them for days afterward, and always, always knows that it means she's his too.

Surrounded by her, taken by her, they speak in a language of grunts and moans, breathy murmurs that burn his skin and _fucks_ and _oh gods_ that scorch him from the inside out.

Her nails mark his back and her teeth split his shoulder and they are the moon and the sea and she pulls him closer with each rise of her hips.

  
vii.

Her foot slides up his leg, brightly painted toenails tickling the hair on his shin—an invitation, a demand—he takes a deep breath of her, like he's never going to again, and slips into her.

vi.

She is his autumn. Brown and gold spread across the pillow case, gentle sighs and murmurs that brush his skin like leaves on the pavement, the warmth of her engulfing him. She's autumn and he escapes from winter's chill inside her.

Or maybe that's too poetic. Maybe they are nothing more than lovers, fuck-buddies, a pleasant afternoon.

But her essence is invading his mind like spring and growing things after a heavy rain and he doesn't much care what they are as long as she keeps saying his name like that.

And maybe that's why she keeps coming back.

  
v.

Her eyes are closed tightly, with three tiny lines dissecting her brow. It's his second favourite face of hers, after the wide-eyed surprised—thought this was vanilla ice-cream and instead it's cookie dough—look she makes when she comes.

He can tell she's memorizing every touch, every lick and caress and cataloguing them in some internal file of hers, maybe—a man's ego hopes—under _Mindblowing._

It's exhilarating to see her concentrate so hard on getting the most pleasure out of their assignation—the little indentation she leaves in her lower lip from biting it, the way her hands clench and unclench the bed sheets, reaching for him and letting her hand drop with a moan, the way, when she finally opens her eyes, she lifts her chin and gives him a look that makes him feel sixteen and inexperienced again.

That look is his second favourite because it leads into his favourite.

  
iv.

He finds the spot under her left ear that makes her groan, the one below her breasts that makes her arch into him, her bellybutton which causes her to laugh huskily and tangle her fingers in his hair, like a goddess of sex, of desire and lust, looking down at her amusing mortals.

His fingers sink into the moisture between her legs and he feels like he's home and he's delirious and he never wants to breathe air that isn't scented with the heady aroma of her arousal again.

He swallows her whole, and she does the same, and she drowns out every thought in his head, in his heart, in his soul.

Finally, his mind is silent.

  
iii.

He has been asleep for so long, and a soft moan escapes her mouth and he's awake. The boring, the humdrum, the grief that sneaks up on him like an assassin—she is his escape and salvation and the culmination of his entire life.

He thanks her with lips and tongue and teeth, with hands sliding tortuously slow up her thighs and fingers staying just far enough away from her cunt to make her squirm, with reverence and grace and the goddamn shrine to her that is his body.

  
ii.

Beautifully drunk she is, and he takes her to his room, kisses and licks her smooth as buttercream icing skin, and pushes her down to slide into her hot as August cunt.

  
i.

The bride is doling out kisses for change and her bowl is almost filled. Tiny little Flitwick and his chapped lips, Hagrid who bends over so far and still she has to stand on a chair, Harry who blushes and looks sheepishly at a laughing Ginny. Even Snape manages to unwind enough to drop a few coins into her bowl—though his kiss is as perfunctory as a neighborly greeting.

He waits until the end of the night, when she has set aside her bowl, and most of their friends and acquaintances are gone; the pub fills with strangers who pay no attention to the pretty brunette or his sheep's clothing, and then he approaches her with a few cents.

Her lips are like Spanish dark chocolate, sweet and bitter with a hint of smoky heat that curls inside him like a poisonous viper. Pulling away, she looks up at him from below long eyelashes, a question in her eyes.

His hand opens and more coins fall into the bowl, and he leans down for another.

 _What's the point of being the wolf if you can't be the Big Bad sometimes?_


	2. Sheep In the Midst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You change your life by changing your heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://jadecharmer.livejournal.com/profile)[ **jadecharmer**](http://jadecharmer.livejournal.com/), I hope you enjoy the story and the fever dream that inspired it. But, seriously, I'm sorry I couldn't keep to one pairing, but yours were all on my to-do list.

There was something to a maudlin drunk that Adrian both hated and loved. First, they were downright depressing, filling his ears with angst and woe until he was quite ready to bash his head in with the nearest heavy implement. Second, because eventually Round Two would begin and they started looking for comfort.

Adrian intended to be there when Round Two began for Hermione Granger.

Oh, he hadn't meant to sit down at Granger's table, and he certainly hadn't meant to start thinking about _sex_ with Granger. But it wasn't his fault that he'd passed by and heard Granger's drunken—and loud—monologue about the stupidity of men, Ron Weasley in particular (and maybe something about an anniversary? He wasn't sure. Her words were too slurred by then.), nor was it his fault that she was wearing an almost scandalous set of robes, which clearly showed she was wearing something much more scandalous underneath.

No, it wasn't his fault at all. Obviously, he had to find out what made Golden Granger, truly the bane of Slytherin wizards everywhere while they attended Hogwarts (a Muggleborn, sure, since it wasn't hard to cover up a relationship if one was a decent Slytherin, but a _Gryffindor_? No way in Salazar.), decide to get drunk in a classy—read: seedy—pub such as The Fire and Brimstone. And it was an opportunity to get dirt on the other two of the celebrity trio, maybe find out something that little shit Malfoy (another Slytherin who had to be told the Law of the Granger by the upper years) didn't know. Malfoy was another blemish on his years in Hogwarts, now a blemish in his otherwise perfect life, and this was a golden opportunity to get one up on him.

So, no, not his fault. Maybe Slytherin's, or his parents, for bringing him up as a Slytherin, or even Ron Weasley, since his… well, whatever it was he'd done—had sent her in his path in the first place, practically gift-wrapped.

It wasn't even his fault that Granger became steadily More Drunk (taking a right turn at Pissed) after he sat at her table. His throat was parched and it _was_ a pub. And he'd been brought up a gentleman, so of course that meant he bought a few more rounds for her as well. If she drunk them—well, that was her deal, wasn't it?

When Hermione explicated on the evils of Weasley, he listened, calling for more drinks when hers were empty, and agreeing wholeheartedly that anniversaries were for hot bunny sex (he raised his eyebrows at this, but couldn't disagree) and not Quidditch on the wireless.

If occasionally he admired the pleasant blush on her cheeks or the way her eyes flashed like diamonds in her anger, it was just the mixture of the dim lighting and the alcohol.

By the time Hermione had expounded on all the wrongs done to her by Weasley, starting from year one, he was agreeably drunk as well, and Hermione had decided he was her new best friend. She was stuck so firmly to his side by this point that Adrian suspected some malicious soul in another part of the pub had cast a Sticking Charm. It would have been rude and downright cruel in her miserable state, to object; so he didn't.

"Tell me, Adrian," she said, toying with the sleeve of his robes. "You would never do that to your girlfriend, would you? Abandon her for the Canons on your anniversary?"

He wrapped his arm around her—poor thing was cold—and refrained from commenting about the bare foot slipping its way up his leg. "Never. If I had a girlfriend _one-tenth_ as good as you, I'd bring her favourite flowers and spoil her endlessly."

Besides, the Canons were a horrible team. Their Chasers were essentially worthless and he wondered how their Keeper stayed in the air at all.

"That's so sweet," Hermione sighed. "You should have a girlfriend. Can't imagine why you don't."

Adrian glanced at her glass and raised his arm at the waitress for another round.

"I'm waiting for the right witch. Now, why don't you tell me more about Weasley? Get it out of your system. I have to admit, your relationship doesn't sound very healthy."

As easily distracted by her own woes as any drunk was—and most sober people, included—Hermione gladly latched onto her favourite subject.

Coming up for air thirty minutes later, Adrian wiped his lips and let his head fall back as Hermione's very dexterous hand continued its work. She nibbled on his ear and he groaned. Laughter, husky and sounding as if she hadn't had a sip of drink, filled his head and swirled through his brain, effectively stopping all thoughts not concentrated solely on _her_.

"Come home with me," she whispered.

He curled his fingers around the edge of the table, fighting the urge to thrust into her hand and make a ruddy fool of himself.

"I shouldn't," he gritted out. "Weasley."

 _That's bad,_ Adrian thought, _when a woman makes you think of silly things like ethics and integrity._

She laughed again, brushing away his moral integrity like a piece of lint on her favourite robes, and playfully nipped at his jaw. "Don't worry. I warded him out of my flat before I came here. He'll be at his mum's.

"Come on. Wouldn't you like a coffee?"

She squeezed his cock persuasively and he was just about to object— _very_ forcefully—when he looked down and knew his guess about her scandalous underthings was wrong— _very_ wrong.

Naked didn't even come close to scandalous.

Well, he'd known his stint with integrity would be brief.

  
*

  
They fell out of the Floo, stumbled over the polite little rug that caught the ashes, and tried to keep their hands off each other on their journey to her bedroom.

It was a tangle of clothes, of robes and bedsheets, and that ridiculous hair of hers—a tangle of limbs, of moans and groans and hasty contraceptive spells.

One round, she rode him hard and rough, like a girl who knew what she wanted and exactly how to get it. She rode him like it was a final exam, her breasts bouncing so enticingly that he was hypnotized. Another round, he pushed her head into the pillows, his heart th-th-thumping in time with the headboard against the wall, and left finger-shaped bruises on her hips.

Adrian was sure he screamed at one point, and that someone had set the bed on fire at another. Her lips set every inch of him aflame, and she mouthed obscenities into his skin and he felt them sink into his bones and the heat was _toomuch_ and finally he was forced to collapse beside her, spent and consumed.

  
*

  
The sun was barely out when Adrian woke the first time. There was something toasty next to him too, cutting off the circulation to his arm.

Fear froze his limbs until he registered that the soft curves pressed against his body were definitely, entirely female. Good. He didn't want a repeat of _that_ event. (Malfoy, the rat bastard, would never let him live it down.)

He sniffed. His sheets didn't smell like lemon—try spilt liquor and smoke—so that ruled out his flat. Ruled out Malfoy's—rose scented sheets, the pretentious bastard, Blaise's—always stale sex, even in the guest bedrooms, and his mum's—fresh linen, too.

So, not at home or a friend's.

He thought back to the night before. He knew there was a pub, definitely a witch—

His cock hardened as soon as he remembered.

Adrian sat up as much as he was able without waking her, and looked down at her.

That a swot as big as her could be so ruddy sexy… It was almost unbelievable, and yet, looking down at those lips that wrapped around his cock like it was made for it, he could believe it.

 _Well,_ he thought, _if she hasn't kicked me out yet…_

Moving the sheet away, he feasted on the sight before him. Her unbound hair flowing over the pillowcase like curled silk, her quiet breaths pushing her rosy pink nipples into view, legs the length of Big Ben.

He slid his hand down her back until he was gently rubbing the soft seam of that perfect little bum. _Glorious_ , he thought, especially with the morning sun shining in through the window.

He kneaded her arse, fingers occasionally slipping between the cheeks into a wetness that increased the longer he was at it. He moved closer, his cock gripped in his hand, hard and ready to burst, propping himself up on his elbow in order to see her quiet face. He raised her leg, slowly as not to wake her, and slipped his thigh between her legs. She shivered, and Adrian lowered his face to smile against her neck.

And _oh_ , was she tight around him, and as perfect as her bum and pert nipples. As perfect as a covert smoke in the broomshed, or a cloudless summer day, or a pick-up match with his mates, but better. And _oh_ , he had to go so slowly that he thought he might explode, or do something stupid like groan or melt into a pool of golden warmth, either of which would invariably wake her.

Finally, bollocks deep, and he had to breathe through his nose so he didn't pant. He briefly wondered why he ever thought he could be quiet or gentle when he knew what she felt like surrounding him, even if he'd been drunk the last time. It was a feeling that transcended inebriation. Hell, a Memory Charm wouldn't have made him forget.

But it was _because_ he remembered that he took the risk. Foolhardy or not, it was worth it. He was a Slytherin anyway, and Slytherins thrived on challenges.

He began to rock inside her, as gentle as the morning sun's rays glowing over them, not taking the chance of pulling out of that perfect quim and thrusting back in, waking her.

He couldn't resist looping an arm over her side and getting another feel of her tits, so he did, and he flicked his thumbnail against her nipples until he felt her lower half squirming against him.

He wondered why he let something as inane as House-fucking-prejudices keep him away from this. Hell, he could've approached her in the library—where she always was in Hogwarts, as opposed to now—with some sob story about how his parents locked him in the broomshed and killed his puppy and had her exquisite cunt all this time. He knew all about her propensity for taking in the downtrodden—Potter and Weasley a testament to it—he should've been a proper Slytherin and disregarded his peers, the so-called rules and went for her when he stood half a chance.

She uttered a weak moan that brought him back to the present. Despite his Slytherin instincts screaming _Danger! Danger!_ , his hand slid from her breasts to his mouth as he wet his fingers. He shifted his leg, pushing hers up until she was open to his questing hand. Then he brought his wet fingers down.

She made a noise, an _oh!_ like she'd found the answer to a question that'd been bothering her, and began to move her hips.

Suddenly there didn't seem to be enough air in the world. Her cunt was squeezing him like it was an Olympic sport and Adrian was quite sure he had more stamina than that.

Without his consent, his shallow thrusts turned deep, searching, and the bed began to squeak under them. Another moan from her, and Adrian braced a foot on the footboard, digging his toes into the grain, and wrapped his other arm around her stomach.

Each thrust he bottomed out inside her. She threw her head back—almost breaking his nose—and her slitted eyelids showed the glazed eyes underneath.

"Adrian," she whispered, and screw silent, she was _moaning his name_ and her cunt was a vise made of wet, hot silk. He rocked his pelvis, the sound of flesh hitting flesh filling the room, and Adrian was sure he wouldn't merely pass out like the last time; a Necromancer would have to wake him.

He knew it was coming, knew he was there, yet his orgasm still caught him off guard, as wrapped up in her as he was. He forced his face into the pillow so he didn't wake the neighbours with his shout.

He moved gingerly, his limp and chafed cock slipping out of her—with a whimper if it had a mouth—and decided he'd have to rest a month before they fucked again if he wanted all of his endurance. Twenty-seven might not be old, but her cunt took years off his life span.

Stars floated at the forefront of his vision and he collapsed beside her and closed his eyes to better appreciate them.

  
*

  
Adrian woke a second time at wandpoint.

Usually it was a much slower affair, after a coffee (black, no sugar) and a glance at the Prophet. The difference between the two amazed him, and maybe, just maybe, he reconsidered the events of the night before. Certainly, it put him on guard.

Not surprisingly, for the people who knew him, the first words out of his mouth were not an endearment. Even at wandpoint, he was as unchangeable as rock.

"Mind getting that wand out of my face and fetching me a cup of coffee?"

"What are you doing here?" She thrust her wand at him, almost poking him in the chest. Adrian thought it might be prudent to put his clothes on seeing how wand happy she looked.

"Playing Quidditch," he answered irritably, feeling like he'd swallowed a cup of gravel. "What d' you think I was doing?"

She paled and backed away as the sheet fell away from him when he sat up.

"We-we didn't—"

He raised an eyebrow. "What? Have wild bunny sex?" He stood and watched as she glanced down, paled further, and appeared ready to pass out. "I have the scars to prove it."

Now that he thought about it, he could feel them all over his back, shifting painfully over his muscles. It'd be a few days before they went away.

"Oh, _god_."

"So you remember, then."

She shot him a look of unbridled loathing and clutched her robe tighter, as if his gaze alone was enough to unclothe her. He was sure if he practised enough it might be, but he was flattered all the same.

"This morning—? Oh, I can't believe this happened," she murmured to herself, turning away as he searched for his trousers.

"If I recall correctly—which I do—you weren't that put out about it last night."

"I don't remember asking you, Pucey," she said, turning around quickly. The snarl fell from her face and she abruptly turned pink when she saw he was pulling on his trousers. She quickly turned back around. Adrian smirked.

"So it's that way, is it? You know, I think I liked you better drunk."

"I bet that's how you like all your women! Drunk and incapacitated enough so they won't object when you flirt with them."

"Oh, love, you think all we did was flirt?" He shook his head sadly. "What _has_ Weasley been doing to you?"

She tore at her hair. "I have a boyfriend! A boyfriend whom I love _very much_!"

"Not what you said last night," Adrian repeated.

Abruptly, she turned and glared at him. Her mood changes were so sudden he expected next she'd be launching herself at him.

"That's—that's—" She paused a moment before her eyes lit up. "You can't trust anything a drunk says."

"So you're admitting you're an alcoholic?"

A shriek of rage would have answered him if she was anything but a Prim and Proper witch, he was sure. She stormed toward him, like a brunette firestorm, and Adrian smirked at the reminder of the night before, not even flinching when she put her finger in his face.

"Look here, Pucey. I'm not an alcoholic. I was drunk and miserable and you took advantage of a weak moment. Whatever you're trying to pull here—blackmail, probably—won't work. Now: get out!"

"Right," Adrian said slowly, ignoring the hand in his face as he buttoned up his shirt. "I suppose Weasley and I can compare notes at the water cooler tomorrow."

A growl was the only warning he got before she launched herself at him.

 _Not exactly what I meant_ , he thought, restraining the hands that were trying to claw out his eyes.

He pushed her off him, and glared balefully as he straightened his twice-rumpled clothes.

"Merlin, Hermione. If I'd known you were the world's only human Howler, I might've reconsidered."

If Adrian admired the way her usually soft eyes turned molten with rage, it was only his right as a twice-mauled paramour. If she chose to acknowledge it, that was only hers.

"You took advantage of me!"

"Well," Adrian said, his eyes screwed up in feigned concentration, "I believe I _was_ Sorted Slytherin."

"I am going to _destroy_ you," she said quite cheerfully. She raised her wand toward him, the tip shooting deadly green sparks unconsciously. "You even _look_ at Ron and you'll regret it."

The neighbours two levels above her flat could hear the _quite painfully_ she left off.

"Are you always such a little ray of sunshine in the morning or is it just my pleasant countenance?"

"Aren't you supposed to be a protection for society and _not_ take advantage of happily engaged women?"

"Happy is not how I'd put your engagement to the Weasel." He muttered something under his breath that might have involved 'cheating' and 'arsehole' but might not have been, too. He straightened and stared her down. "Love, _you_ invited me here. You put your hand down my trousers—quite daring that—and started everything. If anything you took advantage of _me_."

Hermione turned pink from the bare description he'd given her of the night before, but she didn't back down. Just raised her wand higher, looking ready to prove her next words true.

"I think you should leave now before I'm sacked for quite daringly _murdering_ a fellow Ministry employee."

Adrian, a Slytherin through and through, decided to respectfully retreat. The way deadly green sparks were shooting out of her wand meant that her hold on her temper wouldn't last very long.

"Call me if it doesn't work out with the Weasel," he said as he made his way to the door. "I have the feeling it won't."

Adrian closed the door behind him, coincidentally blocking the Stinging Hex, and waited an appropriate amount of time before he smiled. He'd see her again and again until he got through to her. After all, it wasn't his fault the MLE was only a level away from the Auror Headquarters.

He started whistling, suddenly thankful he had talked up Weasley so much that week about the Canons and then struck a little wager on the game with all the Aurors. The way his day was going, he might just leniently let Weasley off the hook for the hundred Galleons he owed.

  
*

  
Four months later—the witch played a hard game—and he met her outside the Fire and Brimstone.

"Drinking again, Hermione?"

She uncrossed her arms, then immediately looked like she regretted it.

"We're going to the cinema," she said. She could make money off that uncanny McGonagall imitation.

He didn't know what that was, but it sounded exotic. Adrian shrugged and brought out the flowers from behind his back. "For you."

He was entirely to blame for the resulting smile that she tried to hide.

 


	3. A Multitude of Firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You change your life by changing your heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://jadecharmer.livejournal.com/profile)[ **jadecharmer**](http://jadecharmer.livejournal.com/), I hope you enjoy the story and the fever dream that inspired it. But, seriously, I'm sorry I couldn't keep to one pairing, but yours were all on my to-do list.

The first time he talks to her is in the library, before he even knows her name.

"I've never seen you before."

"I'm new."

He looks her up and down and makes an obvious sound of approval. "Yes, you are."

She shifts her chair so her back is to him. "Go be corny somewhere else, please."

He quickly goes to the other side of the table. "Now, now, don't be shy. I'm James, the Head Boy."

"A pleasure," she says dryly. "Now will you go away, Head Boy James?"

It was a beautiful beginning.

*

The first time he gets her to smile is when he walks straight into a table as she and Lily come through the portrait hole together. They are a vision, her especially so. Lily scowls at him, and Hermione's face is in a hard position that it's been in since he accidentally spilt ink on her Potion's homework one night when he paid more attention to her face than where he was dropping his books. But, as they go past and her back is almost to him, he sees her lips curve into a secret smile, and Sirius has to wave his hand in front of his face to get his attention when James goes staring at the girls' dormitory staircase long after she's gone.

"Lily went by again?" Sirius asks sympathetically.

"Yeah," James says, staring at the entranceway. "Yeah, Lily."

*

The first time he gets her really, really mad is when he steals her diary. At least, he thought it was her diary, and he stole it secretly hoping that the way she sometimes stares at him when she thinks he won't notice means she has written _Mrs. Hermione Potter_ like he has seen some girls do for Sirius.

She hasn't, and, as he is flipping through the pages frantically, Sirius (the only one who knows) watching the girls' dormitory for Hermione to come back from the bathroom, he realizes it is not a diary at all, but a notebook for experiments. He is looking for hearts and his name prettily drawn, but he finds only numbers and scientific language.

He realizes, in horror, that he might just have stolen her seventh year Potions experiment and that he could be expelled if anyone finds out.

James has never been very good at panic. Ask anyone. The first time he almost managed to become an Animagus, he bolted out of the room in his altogether at the first sign of fur. The Gryffindors laughed at him for days and then the Slytherins found out, and he was laughed at for weeks. It is an embarrassing sort of emotion, since his reaction to it is always worse than the original reason.

So it is not surprising that when Hermione comes back into the room suddenly, with a surprised yelp from Sirius, James throws her notebook out the window.

Everyone in the common room stills as it soars through the air. Heads turn as they follow the small black leather journal with their eyes. It is a broom crash in motion that no one can stop. James pleads silently for it to hit the windowsill, the wall, or even a first year's head—anything but for it to go through the open window.

He is not an all-star Chaser for nothing. The journal flies straight and true.

"Bollocks," he whispers.

Hermione sweeps past him, lips pressed tight together, as Lily starts in on him. He pays no attention, eyes following her as she goes to the window, leans down, and says a Summoning spell. Her book, slightly damp from the midnight dew, is in her hands when she comes back inside.

Lily's voice is loud, but James is staring into her brown eyes so he can still hear Hermione's softly spoken, "You're such a child, James."

He reaches out to grab her arm as she passes by again, an _I'm so sorry, please let me grovel at your feet_ on his tongue. Her scathing glare is enough to make him and, by association, Sirius recoil.

Sirius is overly ostentatious to her for the next few days, trying to make up for them both, while James is quiet. Her words still burn.

*

The first time he almost gives up is when Hermione approaches him after Defense Against the Dark Arts one rainy morning in November. Her smile, soft with a dimple in her cheek, is overwhelming and he stutters out a _h-h-hello Hermione_ that has Remus, Peter and Sirius laughing up a storm as they pass.

Be suave, he thinks desperately. Be cool. Be Sirius. Or even Remus or Peter. Be anyone but bumbling, fumbling James.

"James," she says, still smiling.

"So," he says, thinking that her tone is certainly an improvement from the last time she'd said his name, "did you, uh, think the lesson was good?"

Hermione gives him an odd look. "Yes. Did you?"

James nods. Then he realizes that he has run out of conversation not two minutes in.

She doesn't appear to notice his discomfort. She straightens and holds her books tightly to her chest like a defense against attack. Determination squares her jaw. She looks like a woman on a mission. He cheers silently. This is it, this is his time and Sirius will _not_ be laughing when he tells him later that Hermione, witch of his heart, asked him to Hogsmeade.

He holds his breath.

"I think you should ask out Lily."

"Ye—I, wait, what?"

"Lily," she says, oblivious to his loose jaw, "you should ask her out. She likes you, I know she does. She doesn't think you're that immature anymore. So you should ask her to Hogsmeade this weekend before someone else does."

The sign for Hogsmeade had only been put up that morning. James has been worrying all lesson about someone asking Hermione before he could. Some bloke she has never talked to before that she ends up falling passionately in love with over butterbeer. They'll end up having five kids that all go into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw while James will still live with his parents. He thinks he might have given himself an ulcer from all the worrying he has done in such a short span, and now she is telling him to ask Lily. There has to be a joke somewhere, right?

"Well," James says, and he realizes that he is uncomfortable talking about Lily to Hermione, that he is embarrassed over his almost four year infatuation where he had done everything but kill himself to get her attention. Now he has it and he doesn't want it.

Does he?

Hermione is still looking up at him expectantly. Her eyes are still soft, not hardened in anger, and there's an inkstain on the side of her nose from scratching it while she took hasty notes.

He runs.

Sirius would've never done that, he bemoans to himself. Sirius tells him that, too, right before him and the other two boys burst out laughing again. Peter might have, but not Sirius, and never Remus.

James and Peter: breaking hearts with their charm.

That's the joke, he thinks dismally, his dormitory loud with laughter.

*

The first time he asks Lily out, he doesn't know what the feeling in his chest is. It is disappointment.

He is jerky all throughout the date, constantly looking around for Hermione and whoever had the nerve to ask her. He doesn't know whether he should look, however, as he is sure that she and her date will be making eyes at each other and he is not sure whether he could keep his stomach if he saw that.

He is so distracted that he spits out his weak tea when the waitress at Madam Puddifoot's puts her hand on his shoulder to get his attention. He spits it on Lily's new dress, even, and all down his front.

When he stands up to help clean up his mess, a wad of napkins in hand, he trips over the shoelaces he neglected to tie properly that morning—more concerned with who would pick Hermione up at the Fat Lady's portrait—that have come undone and upends the table on himself.

Dripping with tea, with a chocolate biscuit sticking to his jacket, he walks out of Madam Puddifoot's, swearing to Merlin above that he will never go in there again.

His first date with Lily ends on a very low note, and they mutually decide to never try it again.

James is glad that he is seventeen and he is quickly cleaned up in the alley beside the couple's hangout spot. It is raining when he makes it to the main road and he is sniffing, trying to get the musty perfume of the shop out of his nose, when he sees Hermione. She is talking to Snape.

"Oh, come _the fuck_ on!" he screams at the sky, voice ragged with exasperation.

Hermione looks over at his voice, then quickly says something to Snape before she hurries over to him. He is slightly mollified, but it is quickly dampened when he realizes that she's merely told Snape to wait on her.

"James, are you okay?" she asks breathlessly. Her nose is pink from the cold and her eyelashes are wet. She looks at his hair and back. "Where's Lily?"

"Date ended," he says gruffly.

"Oh." She looks down uncomfortably and back up. "So soon?"

"Didn't go very well," he tells her reluctantly. He glances at Snape, who is glaring at him from his spot at the door to the Three Broomsticks. "What're you doing with him?"

She doesn't hear the jealousy in his voice, but it does remind her that he is waiting. "He's answering some questions I have. Anyway, it took a lot of work to get him to agree, so I need to get back…"

He bites his tongue. One thing Lily has taught him is to not act like a caveman to a girl he fancies. It is the opposite of attractive. Still, he cannot stop the disappointment. "Yeah. See you."

"Oh, um, James?"

He turns back, something dimmer than hope inside him.

"You have some chocolate in your hair," she says, grimacing.

He turns and walks away. He hears her call out after him, "I think I saw Remus go into Scrivenshaft's!"

James just lifts a hand over his shoulder in acknowledgement. The steady drizzle is a good fit for his mood.

"You know you have chocolate in your hair," Remus tells him when he meets him in Scrivenshaft's. He has a box of ink in his hands.

James rubs at his hair, then looks disgustedly at the melted chocolate on his hand. It is already sticky and tangling his hair. He'll have to wait and take a shower at Hogwarts.

"From your face, I take it that's how well your date went," Remus says.

"Right in one," James says, abandoning his hair and leaning against a shelf of quills as Remus leans down to peruse them. "At least I didn't knock a table over on _her_ , though."

"There's that silver lining."

"Yeah, well, it's not much of one considering I just saw Hermione about to go get a butterbeer with Snape."

"Oh, they're not dating," Remus tells him, examining a quill made out of pink hippogriff feathers with confusion.

James straightens. "What? How do you know?"

"Because I heard her tell McLaggen that she wanted to go to Hogsmeade alone so she could get some shopping done." He puts down the pink quill, still looking confused at how that could ever sell. "Then again, McLaggen is sort of a brute, no offense to your Beater, so she could have just lied to let him down easy."

"True." James thinks about it. "But that doesn't mean she didn't say yes to Snape!"

"He wasn't with her when she was in Gladrag's," Remus says. "And we talked for a long time in there while I bought socks."

"Oh, you did?" James asks, frowning at his mate.

Remus doesn't look away from the quills. "Yes. I confessed my undying love and she agreed to have my hairy babies. Be my best man?"

"Git."

"Nancy."

*

The first time he seriously wonders whether he's in his right mind is when he takes his Invisibility Cloak on patrols and abandons his post halfway through to sit on top of the Astronomy Tower and wait. Each time the night ends and Hermione doesn't show with Snape or any other bloke, or even move from the Gryffindor common room according to the map, he considers it a success.

It is how he finds out Peter is doing more than sneaking out at night to visit the kitchens. He is visiting wanna-be Death Eaters, too.

*

The first time he sees her cry is New Year's Day. It is too late to be night and too early to be morning when James wakes up with an urgent need to visit the loo. As he shuts off the lights, his warm bed already on his mind, he hears it.

He shuffles downstairs, thinking that he will need to Conjure tissues for whatever first year is crying for their parents this time since he ran out with little Matilda earlier. It is both the most endearing and irritating duty of being Head Boy. He stops on the bottom stair, in the shadows, when he sees that it is not a first year, but Hermione.

She is kneeling in front of the fire, glass shards from a broken vial and a light blue potion puddled around her. She is pretty even with her eyes puffy and red and tear stains on her cheeks. He doesn't have to think twice about what to do.

James goes to her, stepping carefully over the glass shards, sits down and pulls her unresisting body into his lap. Her shirt is damp against his bare chest, but he does not mind when she wraps her arms around him tighter than Devil's Snare.

He lets her cling to him, and he rubs her back until her sobs die down into sniffles. He whispers, "It's okay. Whatever it is, I'll make it better. I'll fix it." He put his face into her mass of hair and _breathes_.

"I promise."

*

The first time he thinks she feels more than friendship for him, they are in the library after James successfully badgers her into letting him sit with her at her regular table in a less-trafficked corner of the stacks. She thinks he's only doing it because he feels sorry for her, and he lets her.

His head is beside hers as they both look at a passage they'll need for their Potion's homework. Her eyes are crinkled in the way that means she is thinking hard about a subject, connecting ideas and thoughts together that will get her top marks by all the teachers the next day.

He is still staring at her, mapping out the freckles across her nose and cheeks, when her eyes come up to meet his.

For once, he does not look away, stuttering something about dried shrivelfig or batwings. Instead, he glances at her chapped lips and back up, almost involuntarily, to her light brown eyes.

For the first time, it is she who is stuttering as she packs up her books, tripping over her words as she says something about tutoring third years, and stumbling out of the library.

He leans back and grins. She doesn't tutor on Thursdays.

James doesn't even care when Sirius laughs at the reason behind the goofy grin he sports for the rest of the day.

*

The first time they kiss—and it's not stolen, Sirius, shut up—is on Graduation Day.

She smiles the whole day. Smiles at everyone and everything and acts as if the stars have just come out after a five hundred year sabbatical. James cannot help but smile, too, though Hermione is not all he smiles about.

Sirius has the punch spiked within a record of three seconds, and Ludo Bagman breaks another record by being the first to take off his trousers and swing them around his head during the appetizer course.

"Ah, memories," Lily says as James covers Hermione's eyes.

Hermione even keeps her smile on, though it looks achieved through sheer force of will, when after the plates are cleared and the tables removed, Professor Slughorn cuts into her dance with James's future supervisor Kingsley Shacklebolt. She has never liked the schmoozer, and neither has he.

Her smile does dim slightly, and her eyebrows lower in what seems like consternation, when Remus shyly asks a blushing Lily to dance. James sees and quickly pulls her out of her chair, her protesting all the way, and spins her onto the dance floor.

He ignores her scolding, and tells her, "You look beautiful."

"Thank you. You do know you don't have to be a Neanderthal about it."

"Sure I do. How else can I be original when every other bloke and his dad in this room are so sodding nice about it?"

"The fabled James Potter logic." He rolls his eyes. "Your dad hasn't approached me," Hermione points out. Though her voice is serious, there is a smile tugging at her glossy lips.

"Because _he_ knows better," James says darkly. Couldn't they see she was here with him? Even if they weren't technically 'official', everyone in school— except for her, who was apparently blinder than he was— knew how much James liked her. Yet she'd been approached by half the male graduates, all wanting to 'congratulate' her on the best marks in fifty years, and those stupid university recruiters that kept wanting to shake her hand.

James has considered that his logic is faulty somewhere, and he may indeed be mad. The thought doesn't last long.

They look over and catch Lily pulling Remus out of the Great Hall, looking as if she might fly unaided by broom for how daring she's being. They watch as they leave, the door slamming behind them, and James turns back to Hermione in time to catch the frown on her face.

"Jealous?" His hand tightens on her waist the longer he waits for an answer.

"No," she says when he's just beginning to panic. "I didn't expect it, is all."

"I did," he says, warming to the topic now that the uncertainty of her feelings was gone. _Whew._ He would never be able to compete with Remus intelligence-wise. "Since third year. I suppose the only reason they didn't was because Remus was being careful of my feelings."

"So are you jealous?"

"No," he answers quickly, and truthfully. "I've known for a while that pursuing her would be a bad idea." He leans down conspiratorially and whispers, "I would've broken her heart eventually."

"Cad." He spins her away from him and then back. Her laughter leaves him breathless and grinning—and reckless.

"You know you love me," and wishing it true as he says it.

The smile drops from her face as she stares up at him, and dread fills and eats away at his gut. He has stepped into no-man's land without a map or an ally—or a handy Invisibility Cloak—and Hermione is looking up at him as if she's trying to dissect him with her eyes.

"This is a bad idea," she murmurs. He has no time to ask _what is?_ or _how bad?_ before she wraps a hand around the nape of his neck, pulls him down, and kisses him.

By the time the night is over, after they go on a long—long—tour of the rose garden, James slides into bed drunk, and he didn't even have any punch.

*

The first time he is without worries that she will find some dashing bloke and run away with him while he's at a two-week Auror camp or at any other time, is when she throws herself a house-warming-slash-bookshop-opening party and tells him to invite his friends.

"So why are you opening a bookshop, Hermione?" Sirius asks around a mouth full of cake when Hermione's other friends have gone home. His hand slowly edges into James's plate, aiming at his biscuit.

James pops his hand. "Because it's books," he answers, and grins at Hermione.

"Why thank you, Hermione," Lily says. "What a wonderful five o'clock shadow you have." She continues over the laughter, "But I would like to know too."

They are sitting on the floor of the future bookshop, propped on pillows and a half-eaten cake on a cardboard box. There is light coming through the large windows, but Hermione has lit candles that brighten the setting sun's rays and make interesting shadows on their faces. Her face is the most interesting. Pensive, with a hint of evil overlord in the form of shadows slashing across her chin and cheeks.

"My parents were dentists—that's a type of Healer for teeth—and academics, so our house was always filled with books. They weren't even that surprised when they found out I was a witch, because of fantasy novels and the like. Anyway"—she shakes herself out of the memory, though James wishes she hadn't—"they always hoped I'd do something normal, maybe even go into dentistry myself. And, though I think I would've liked some boring career in a lab, testing potions and magic, their wish for me to lead a relatively normal life would have nagged at me forever." She swallows a bite of dip and her smile is content, if not cheerful. "So, since dentistry's never appealed to me, I figured I'd go with my parents' second love—books."

"I'm sure they would be proud of you," James tells her and leans over to bestow a light kiss. He wants to linger so badly over her soft lips. Two weeks away from her sounds like a lifetime—and what if she meets some handsome bibliophile and they walk into the sunset holding hands and books? He needs to imprint himself on her somehow. It's either that or lock her in a trunk until he gets back and he knows that won't go over well and she could quite possibly get away with his murder with those big doe eyes. "Can we kick them out now?"

Lily hits him with a pillow.

"It was just a question!" James shouts, holding his arms over his head when more pillows from different directions fly at him.

"You do know," Sirius, who is ignoring James, says, "that you will, at some point, have customers wanting to buy your books?"

"Yes," Hermione answers just as seriously. "That is generally what a bookshop is all about. Most shops, actually, run a product-transaction business."

He sticks his tongue out at her. "Oh ho. So, you know that you'll have to sell your books eventually. You can't just keep them all. Do you think you can you stand it?"

"Yes, because they'll give me money, and I'll get new books. Exciting, isn't it?"

Sirius, who is now pouting at failing to rile Hermione, mutters, "About as exciting as a curtain."

"Don't ask if you don't want the answer," Hermione says, and tops off his wine with a grin.

Later, when the lights are shut off and it's only the candles, James lounges on his back and stares at the ceiling, Hermione showing Remus her book catalogues—bibliophiles, he thinks fondly—he eavesdrops.

"You know, Remus, that I would never turn you away."

There is a pause, and James turns his head so he can see them. While Remus's face is a study in confusion, Hermione is staring at Remus with a look on her face he's never seen before—fierce, like she's talking about protecting a child or a first edition of _Hogwarts, A History_.

"What exactly do you mean, Hermione?" Remus asks. He sounds as if he's wishing he'd had that last glass of wine.

"I mean, I know it's going to be hard for you to find work as a werewolf."

James sits up just as Remus shoots him a rage-filled glare. "You _told_?"

"No, of course he didn't," Hermione cuts in before James can say a word past his bafflement. "Did you really think I wouldn't get curious after all your 'furry problem' jokes—I for one have never seen this naughty rabbit you supposedly keep, the times all three of you disappear, how you avoided Sirius's girlfriend that one time at that one club who wore that awful perfume?"

"Sirius avoided her!"

Hermione remains stony-eyed. "Remus, I honestly couldn't care. You didn't ask to be turned into a monster for a small percentage of each year. That's not you. You're still the same cardigan-wearing, wry, handsome"—James makes a noise—"but much less handsome than James, and terrible dancer Remus. You're still Remus."

Silence enters the shop like a third-wheel, heavy and obtrusive and painfully awkward. Remus's back is to him, so he cannot see the expression on his friend's face. But Hermione's face is full of sincerity and, after a few moments, she holds her hand out for Remus to shake before they mutually decide to hug at the same time.

"Group hug?" James ventures, and Remus laughs and laughs and laughs. James thinks they might have broken him.

*

The first time he falls utterly, irrevocably, in love with her, it is a Wednesday. She's busy opening her shop and he pops in during his lunch break for some tea and maybe an all-around pain reliever. Kingsley Shacklebolt kicked his sorry arse all over the place at training today, though he'd never tell Hermione or, Merlin forbid, _Sirius_.

He comes in through the Floo to her flat, and beelines toward her medicine cabinet before going downstairs, heavy boots clattering loudly on the stairs.

"Hermione?"

"Over here!" she calls. James grins—the classics section, of course.

"You're never going to get any work done if all you do is read the books," James says as he comes around the shelves. Hermione is not curled in the thick leather chair, however, and James is slightly disappointed. He had hoped she would be so he could curl his aching body around her and maybe get a few snogs in before he goes back to that grueling hell supposedly meant to be the Ministry. Instead, she actually is working.

He looks up and that is _it_. He is in love. Hermione's hair is pulled back in a bun that looks ready to fall down with the lightest breeze, there is dust on her nose and plaster in her eyelashes, and she's wearing the too-tight, too-short, too-everything that he cannot allow to be seen by other males and especially Sirius jean shorts.

"I am working," she says, and it takes a moment for him to remember what he had said with her smiling that way at him.

"Get down here," he says, sounding as if he swallowed a cup of gravel.

Hermione raises her brows, but climbs down the ladder. He moves forward quickly, trapping her there against the wooden rungs before she can move away. She lets him, even wraps her arms around his neck and leans her body into his. His heart is beating slowly in his chest, and it feels like he might swallow his tongue at any moment.

Oh, boy.

He swallows and holds her chin up with two fingers so she is looking him in the eyes. Her smile fades the longer he stares at her without speaking. "I'm crazy about you, you know that?"

Something flickers behind those brown eyes. One day he will find out what that is about, but that day is not today.

"Yes," she whispers. "I—I'm crazy about you, too."

He hadn't needed reciprocation, but it is still good to hear. They may be talking about two separate things—probably are, with his luck—but he imagines that they are for once speaking the same language.

He kisses her. When they break apart, Hermione breathes against his lips, "Do you have to go back?" Those innocuous words go straight to his cock.

"No," he says quickly. "Not until tomorrow."

Fuck Auror training _and_ Kingsley Shacklebolt.

*

The first time he believes—really believes, not just repeating what his elders have told him, believes so much he could speak his heart to the masses—in right and wrong is also the first time she takes him to bed.

He's hesitant. She has been in his mind for what seems like forever, and, now, to have her spread out underneath him, pink nipples pebbling in the cool air of her lemon-scented bedroom, it is almost too much for him to think coherently, much less be any _good_.

He tries to think about what Sirius would do—but, no, that feels too much like he's inviting him into bed with them. And though there are a lot of things he's willing to share with his best mate, Hermione is the exception. Neither does he want her to see just how unskilled he is next to Sirius's famed prowess.

So, no. Instead, he thinks about what he would do if he had Sirius's famed prowess.

Well, one has to have _experience_ before they can have prowess. Not something you can fake, like confidence or heavy drinking.

"James?" Hermione asks finally. She picks herself up on her elbows. "Do you still…?" She bites her lip.

"Oh, no, no," he says quickly, leaning forward to kiss her. It is awkward, and he feels like a plate of spaghetti, all arms and legs and dangly bits that are usually covered when he's kissed her in this position before. "I mean— _yes_. Yes, I do still. I just…"

She smiles, looking more relieved than he feels.

"It's fine," she tells him, and takes his hand in hers. "I can tell you what to do."

"Have you…?" he asks uncertainly, not sure whether he wants to know the answer.

She lies back down and looks up at him. It is an image that will last in his fantasies until he can no longer have them. "I just know what I like."

"Oh, you do, do you?" he says, crawling until he is hovering over her, lips scant inches away from hers. "That is unbelievably sexy."

"I hoped so," she says breathlessly, her body arching toward his. "Now kiss me, James." He does.

Her skin is divine, spotted with freckles in the most interesting areas that he maps out with his tongue and fingers at Hermione's direction.

She moans beneath his questing digits, arches up into his tongue, and he wonders how anyone would want to kill something this beautiful, this pure. Why anyone would want to scar skin this perfect.

They will never get the chance, he thinks, wrapping lips and tongue and teeth around her nipple. He'll die before something happens to Hermione.

James learns that Hermione has the dirtiest mouth in bed. The most colourful and creative merging of foul words he's never heard in all his years in Quidditch or around Sirius. He doesn't know whether to stop and applaud or keep going to see how far she will go.

If he was Sirius, he would keep going. So he does.

"Kiss me," she orders him again, hips moving helplessly against his fingers. "Fuck. Kiss me, James."

He obeys gladly, luxuriating in the feeling of her hard nipples rubbing against his chest. She wraps her arms and legs around him, and their bodies are crushed together so tightly they can hardly breathe, but neither move away nor back. She holds onto him like an anchor, and gasps _now, now, ohgodnow!_

He enters her, and, gasping, knows that this is right. He knows that they are wrong; this is right, so very _right_.

*

The first time he takes a stand and sees his and Hermione's future intertwined, is in the hours after the end of the grand opening party of Bluestockings, a Portkey entrance bookshop that connects to both Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, the actual store located in an alley near Trafalgar Square.

It feels like a Hogwarts reunion with how many Hogwarts alumni and professors show. He tells Flitwick stories from Auror training and the new spells they use, hides from McGonagall—he knows she has a few scores to settle with them, and he doesn't want to give her the chance, though he does direct Sirius in her direction—and suffers through a fifteen-minute long one-sided conversation with Slughorn.

Hermione's been running around like a madwoman for this party for weeks—it's no surprise she looks tired but happy, like a new mother, as she sips champagne by the register counter. For someone who proclaims loudly and repeatedly that she hates parties every time James drags her to a party, she sure put a lot of effort into making hers perfect.

He appears beside her as she's talking to Blott of Flourish & Blott's, and she gives him a distracted look as they talk, predictably, about books. He wraps an arm around her waist, glad for the break in hobnobbing with the locals of both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, and listens in as Hermione, along with big hand gestures, defends the pros of having a large Muggle section.

"It's not as if any wizard will read them!" Blott says, laughing. "Unless you decide to invite Muggles in, the Muggle stock will never be bought—" He stops at the smirk on her face. His face slowly turns red. "That's preposterous!"

"When I said I invite all types into Bluestockings—not just students and bored housewitches, no offense—I meant all types."

"But—"

She steamrolls over him and points at the closest shelves. "Were you a Muggle, this section would show Biographies, leading into Histories, instead of Alternative Potion Remedies. It's called double-bookshelves—they're all the rage in New York where the magical community interacts with Muggles on a daily basis."

Blott still looks disturbed, but the idea of double-bookshelves—basically doubling his stock—seems to have his whole attention. "Very forward thinking," he murmurs, already looking as if he's calculating the gain to his own shops.

James smiles in what he hopes is a charming fashion and says, "Excuse us, please."

He waits until Blott is out of earshot before leaning toward Hermione and saying in a hushed voice, "Going to stun them all next by telling them you're hiring only werewolves?"

"I have the right to hire whomever I want," she says stubbornly, kicking back her glass.

James glances around the room, wondering just how Hermione thinks she can introduce such a thing as Muggle shopping when more than half of the guests are antiquated Purebloods, and very proud of it.

"Yes," he says, just as stubborn, "and I admire you for it. You know I do. But with the current political climate, with You-Know-Who out there and looking to exterminate anything that defies Pureblood notions, like treating werewolves like anything other than beasts or consorting with Muggles, I don't think it's wise to purposefully make yourself a target."

"So you think I should what?" Her voice is low and harsh. "Lie low? Refuse to live my life because of a madman's terms? I'm going to be a target no matter what, James, because I was born. What are a few werewolves and pro-Muggle ideas next to that?"

It's an argument that's been with them ever since she bought the site, before he was even 'living in sin' with her, as his father jokingly calls it. It had only escalated on James's side after the brutal slaying of the most prominent Muggleborn in England, a warlock that represented England in the International Confederation of Wizards.

If they could reach _him_ , it would be no problem to reach her.

"Just— Later, okay?" James says as McGonagall approaches.

When the last guest has left, the opening officially deemed a success by Rita Skeeter, for whom Hermione's smile was very frosty, Hermione opens the bathroom door. She is uttering vile threats at James as she opens it if it turns out that Sirius had indeed taken 'Ladies Restroom' to heart with his date, when Dumbledore steps out as calmly as if he was just invited through the front door.

"Headmaster!" Hermione exclaims.

James looks behind him to make sure there are no other Hogwarts professors congregating in the women's loo.

"I have to say, Hermione, you have delightful taste in soaps."

"Thank you?" she says, glancing at James, who shrugs.

Dumbledore beams and walks forward. "You're welcome. My apologies for surprising you, Hermione, James. I did not feel it prudent to, as they say, 'stick around', with Rita Skeeter hovering by."

"I understand, Headmaster. Were you waiting for a reason?"

"If we could adjourn to your cozy reading nook, I will tell you."

"As you know," Dumbledore says as they sit down, James beside Hermione on a small loveseat, "there was another Death Eater attack yesterday—a family of Purebloods that has supported me since my teaching days."

"Aurors stopped that attack," James says. "No one was seriously injured."

"I'm afraid not, James. Oh, the Prewetts were safe, but the Aurors were not the ones to defend against the attack. The members of the Order of the Phoenix were the first to get there."

"I've heard about them," he says, remembering the grumbles from some of the higher-ups. "A rebel group acting outside Ministry orders."

"Yes." Dumbledore takes off his spectacles and polishes them on his robe sleeve. "It was only on my orders that the Prewetts were spared."

"You?"

James doesn't know what Dumbledore's doing, telling him this. Does he _want_ James to report him? As an Auror, it was his duty to report it—there was no telling how many lives he was putting at risk with his ragtag group. Trained Aurors and hitwizards could barely keep the Death Eaters at bay. Dumbledore and this Phoenix club were fooling themselves and probably going extinct.

How could _Dumbledore_ , the greatest and strongest wizard alive, the one who had so much compassion he let a werewolf enter Hogwarts, risk lives like that?

His anger must have shown on his face, for Dumbledore sighed and pushed his glasses back up. "James, you came to me seeking help in erecting wards to protect Hermione."

He ignores the heat in his cheeks. "So? I want her to be safe."

"I do not fault you for it. I am asking you how you think the Ministry can defend her and defeat Voldemort if you do not even trust to their approved wards?"

"I'll protect her," James insists, feeling very foolish. He'd thought he could trust Dumbledore.

"What about the other countless lives you could protect and save? James, I am asking you to join me in the fight against Voldemort."

Hermione put her hand on his arm, stopping him from responding with his first immediate answer. "Hear him out, please."

"You knew about this?" James asks, shaking her off and setting his heart against her hurt eyes. "This… this Order thing? Are you a member already?"

"Hermione has known about the Order since her seventh year, James, but when I last asked her to join, she deferred to your wishes on the question."

Her cheeks are pink when he turns to her again, but her jaw is squared in that determined way he both loves and hates. "I would have joined on my own, but it's an important decision. I wanted you to be by my side. Possibly."

James looks down at his hands so Hermione won't see the fear in his eyes. He wants to be strong, oh but he does, but the thought of Hermione dying while protecting some family disarms him entirely.

"I'll leave you two alone to consider my proposition." He fingers his beard as he stands. "It if helps you decision any, both your friends Messrs Black and Lupin have joined."

That explains all the sidelong glances and stilted conversations he's had with them lately, where he thought they might have been hiding something from him.

"If I can have a private moment with you, Hermione, I will be on my way."

She comes back in alone, and he takes her roughly on top of the register counter. Legs over his arms, her fancy dress robes around her hips, him barely out of his trousers.

Every touch an argument, every sound a demand. He bruises her skin and each thrust makes her cry out in pleasured pain. He wants her to stay out of the fight, to stay safe, to stay—he pushes back into her and groans—his.

Her nails penetrate his back, bite marks on his shoulders. She'll never be content on the sidelines.

They move together, with an argument, with a plea, and James is so in love with her that he can't stand even thinking about losing her. Just knowing that Death Eaters will be after her, and nothing but luck can save her, makes the world a mad, dizzying place around him. He drops her legs and holds her face close to his, foreheads touching as they catch their breath.

He closes his eyes and breathes in their sweaty scents. Losing this, losing her—it is too much too think about in one night. He pulls away and they dress in silence.

When they finally get to extinguish the lights in the shop and are undressing for bed, sore and exhausted, they both feel someone push against the wards.

Hermione looks up at him from the other side of the bed, already reaching for her wand.

"You think?"

James's heart stutters in fear. "Stay here. I'll go check."

She makes to follow him, only in her knickers, and he glares. "Stay. Please, Hermione."

"Oh-okay," she says, eyes wide, and it takes them a moment's eye contact for him to trust that she will.

He brushes a kiss against her forehead, not thinking about last times or farewells. Someone is trying to break in.

He hurries downstairs, running through wand motions and spells in his head, and checking outside each window he passes for the culprit.

He opens the back door of the shop silently; wand at the ready, he searches for threats before he is through and the door is shutting soundlessly behind him. Left or right—which way to go?

Right. It's always been luckier for him. Though he's unsure what would be lucky in this situation—finding the culprit or _not_ finding him.

He's seen photographs of Death Eater killings and attacks before, and the images gallop through his head and James thinks of Hermione alone upstairs and wishes he was in bed with her and the responsibility of skulking around dark corners for threats on someone with stronger shoulders than him.

He realizes that Hermione is right—she will always be in this danger, even if You-Know-Who is miraculously defeated. What are a few werewolves, Muggles, and rebel clubs next to that?

He's even tenser after he's gone around the building twice and found nothing.

Unlucky, then.

An unnatural light blooms from the darkness. He looks across the road and sees a familiar figure hunched over his wand.

"What are you doing here, Peter?" James asks the stranger he thought he once knew. Peter looks less nervous than he's ever seen him, and his face is gaunt, as if he's been missing meals for a while now.

"Hello, old friend."

"Friend? We thought you were." _But we were just your bodyguards until someone bigger came along._

Peter holds against his anger by ignoring it, eyes continuously going back to Bluestockings's darkened storefront. His hands stay still at his sides. James is used to them moving—washing his hands like the rat he turns into.

"Asked her to marry you yet?" James doesn't answer and he continues. "I always thought it'd be Lily. She was always so nice to me. Hermione—she's never liked me. Wormtail could smell her hatred."

"What are you doing here, Peter?" he repeats.

Peter's watery blue eyes finally hold his. They are beady.

"I'm only called Wormtail now."

Suddenly sickened, James says, "It's not too late."

Peter motions to his left forearm. He softly says, "But it is."

James is abruptly alone on the pavement, watching as a rat's tail disappears around the corner. He thinks it says everything about him that he doesn't stop him.

He looks up at the sky as he opens the door to the shop. There should be ruthless wind and murderous lightening. It should not be just another mild night when a friend is lost forever.

The door clicks closed behind him.

He goes back up the stairs in his socks, thinking about how Hermione's never mentioned Peter in conversation. Not once in their time together. Instincts he learned in Auror camp come back to him, and he sees instances—little things like knowing the new barkeep Tom would last more than a year, and big things like Remus's lycanthropy—differently than just a lucky guess or logical deduction.

He knew they hadn't been that careless in disappearing every full moon.

James shuts and locks the flat door behind him, and hears the shower start a moment later. She'd been waiting for him.

James stands outside the door, looking in as steam filled the small room, and wonders what he should say, should do, when he finds his girlfriend, the woman he loves, has more layers than the ones he's encountered. He's still standing there when he hears her barely muffled sobs.

Later, when the lights are turned off, she lays beside him in bed, smelling of green apples and lotion. His thumb runs over her collarbone, and he can tell she is just as awake as he is because her soft little snores and sleepy murmurs he's never told her about are missing from the night.

"Why you cry sometimes..." he starts in a whisper.

Silence—he hopes she will not feint sleep—before, hesitatingly: "Yeah?"

"You'll tell me one day, right?"

Her breathing stills, stops. "I-Of course. Yes. I-I will."

*

The first time he believes this might just work is when he stops by Sirius's flat for lunch one day a week after his friend's birthday and sees a gift from Hermione sitting on his table.

"I didn't know she got you a gift," James says, as surprised delight fills him.

Sirius looks over from the couch and grimaces uncomfortably.

James opens the box, wondering if it was that bad. It's empty. "Where is it, then?"

He looks even more uncomfortable when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of leather gloves. James had seen him pulling them on the night before as he left a meeting on his new motorbike, but had figured he'd bought them himself.

He shouts with laughter.

Sirius scowls even further and stuffs the gloves back into his pocket.

"Okay—okay!" he shouts over him. "She has good taste for a swot. Why're you ragging on me anyway? I've always liked her."

"Sure, sure, you did."

Sirius walks past him on his way out the door. "She also got me the Ministry's _Latest Rules and Regulations of Airspace_ , so don't get too cocky."

*

The first time James ignores protocol and leaves the safety of the group of his comrades, there are forty Death Eaters surrounding a burning Bluestocking's and he can't see Hermione behind them.

Kingsley shouts after him, but James is already running, dodging spells and cursing and pushing Death Eaters out of his way. Blue flames envelope the shop, and bile lodges itself in his throat at the smell of burning flesh. He opens his mouth and swallows sweltering heat.

Something—relief, exhilaration, all-consuming joy—almost takes him down when he sees Hermione, alive, fighting the Death Eaters. The two other Marauders are helping, along with Lily and the werewolf who worked behind the counter.

Lily is frantically screaming spells, trying to get the flames to stop crawling up the wall. Though Remus is doing his best to shield her, she's still woefully undefended.

"They won't get in! The wards!" James yells. "Leave it!"

Even with forty Death Eaters, thirty Aurors are enough to hamper their attack, giving Hermione and the others a brief respite, and allowing Dumbledore to arrive in a mass of blazing glory. It's enough to incapacitate them, or at least make them turn tail and run, which many opt for once they see Dumbledore's usually warm eyes turned cold. James can feel the Anti-Apparition wards come up a second after half the Death Eaters Disapparate from the scene. The rest are either dead or disarmed.

James turns and, before he knows it, has an armful of lightly scorched Hermione. She hisses in pain when her forearms rub against his coarse Auror robes, but doesn't let go.

"I was so scared. You ran right through them—you could have been killed! You could have _died_! Why—why—you stupid, stupid man!"

He grins into her hair. "I'm crazy about you, too, y'know." His arm tightens around her and he looks up at his friends, who are surveying the wreckage that used to be the street. "I'm glad you all are alright."

Inadequate, he knows, and Lily gives him a glare that tells him so, but she doesn't look like she'll comment on it and he still doesn't know what he would've done if it was any different.

Hermione finally lets go of him to survey the street as James extinguishes the flames trying to eat their way through the wards on Bluestocking's and their flat. Half the pavement was blown away, and several shops nearby had been hit with the small explosion. Aurors were busy rounding up the breathing Death Eaters, revealing the faces behind their masks, and cataloguing the dead ones.

James almost steps forward to help, shame suddenly overcoming him, but Kingsley shakes his head as he steps forward.

"Unofficial capacity, Potter, since this is your home residence," he says, and nods at Hermione and the others. "Five dead or seriously wounded. They're being identified and taken to St. Mungo's. Sirius, isn't your cousin married to Lucius Malfoy?"

Sirius wrinkles his nose. "Yeah. Why? You see him? Wouldn't surprise me a bit."

"If you can contact her to pick up his body at St. Mungo's, we'd be thankful. She might take it better if it came from family."

James would one day have to tell his superior that his tact was utter bullshit. One day far, far into the future. And maybe not from him at all.

Sirius, paler now, says, "Not from me. You should try Andromeda, though. She might could."

Kingsley nods, gives James what might have been called a sympathetic look in a much less muscled man, and leaves, barking a, "Stokes, I have a job for you!" at the newest Auror, twenty years old and just out of boot camp.

Hermione puts her face into his shoulder, and he could feel her shaking as tears wet his robes. Worried, he rubs a hand down her arm. "You okay, luv? What's wrong?"

"Maybe," Dumbledore interrupts silently, surprising James, and he's looking at Hermione sympathetically, "we should adjourn to a less public location."

All four of them go into the shop. It smells slightly singed, as they all do, but it's no worse for wear. James makes a mental note to check the wards as soon as the other Aurors were gone.

They sit down, and Hermione somehow snags a lone chair beside Dumbledore's as they arrange themselves, leaving James sitting opposite her on his other side.

"I think now is an appropriate time to tell them," Dumbledore says with a mournful sigh.

He glances at the group, wondering who needs to tell them, and what, and only Hermione's face is unconfused.

She blots her eyes with the sleeve of her robe, and exhales shakily. She doesn't look at him when she begins. She stares at her knees and her voice is soft when she begins. "I was almost twelve when I met my best friends on the Hogwarts Express. Ron Weasley and Harry… Harry Potter."

*

"So we died."

"Yes. All of you. Peter even sacrificed himself—unintentionally, I'm quite sure—for Harry to escape Voldemort."

"So that's why you hated Peter," Remus says quietly. When they all look at him in surprise, he goes a little pink around the ears. "The heightened smell," he explains sheepishly.

Hermione smiles, but it's uncomfortable and James looks at his nails. "Well, yes. That's why, then."

"You didn't explain why you didn't go back like you were supposed to," Lily says, the question in it James has wanted answered the most.

"The potion didn't work. Professor Snape had concentrated only on going back—my research company made the going forward antidote. I was in the Charms department, so I wasn't privy to the research or the steps they put into it. I was just the guinea pig to test it on, so I can't try to recreate it."

James remembers that night, almost four years ago now, when he found Hermione crying in the Gryffindor common room, the blue potion spilt on the floor and the glass shards he stepped over to get to her.

Potions had never been his strong suit, but surely she could have collected some of the potion on the floor and examined its properties?

James looks up and Hermione's eyes catch his. The intensity of them burn. She's speaking, but he's enraptured with the emotions in her eyes. They tell a different story than her mouth.

"I couldn't go back, so I decided to live as if I'd been born here."

When all is explained and questions answered, Sirius and Remus leave the shop looking like they did when they found out Peter was hobnobbing with the worst of the Slytherins—hurt and betrayed, with a lot of anger on Sirius's part. Lily's just confused.

Sirius calls him over as they open the door, but James is looking at Hermione, still sitting and valiantly trying to listen to Dumbledore's encouraging words.

As soon as he walks over to her, the Headmaster quietly excuses himself and leaves James staring down at a lost Hermione. She keeps her eyes on her lap. Hurt sparks in his chest to know that she's afraid. Of _him_.

"Why you cry at night…"

She finally looks up from her lap at him, tears filling her big brown eyes.

"That potion—it worked, didn't it? Or, it would have if you had taken it."

She doesn't answer, but she doesn't have to.

He smiles, a little shakily, and pulls her unresisting body up.

He doesn't know what he's going to say until "Thank you," spills out of his mouth. She's laughing and crying and he kisses her to shut her up.

"I'm crazy about you, y'know," she says, pulling away. Her smile is bright and blinding. "So crazy."

James grins. "How could you not be?" and kisses her again.

It's the first time he kisses the real Hermione, and he's already in love.

 


	4. Mandated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You change your life by changing your heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://jadecharmer.livejournal.com/profile)[ **jadecharmer**](http://jadecharmer.livejournal.com/), I hope you enjoy the story and the fever dream that inspired it. But, seriously, I'm sorry I couldn't keep to one pairing, but yours were all on my to-do list.

_It bodes ill when the bride has to hide from her husband on their wedding night_ , Hermione thought.

A thrill shot through her and she took a deep breath in order to calm it. It was pure luck the Ministry's mandated lust potions weren't made by Snape, and so easily overcome. It still left a tingling yearning in her, but she could handle that. It wasn't yet forcing her to go to her new husband.

Of course, she had no assurance that Rodolphus's weren't so weak, or that he was trying to overcome it at all, so she didn't step out of the small washroom she had locked herself in since he had Apparated them after the private wedding at the Ministry.

When a knock came at the door, loud and echoing even louder against all the granite in the room, she figured she had her answer.

"No games, little princess," he called, his voice booming and cheerful. She bit back a scowl and looked for another way out. _This isn't a game_ , she thought, and knelt beside the washbasin. _It's my life._

In her experience, a pureblood home always had secret hiding places and at least two exits from every room. They were paranoid like that. If she'd just had a little time to study the house before she was unceremonially thrust into the hands of a Death Eater—former or repentant, she didn't care—she could have already been away and on her way to France. The Repopulation Accord of 1163, the law they had used to get her married in the first place, had been reinstated so quickly and efficiently that she'd had no time to study or plan before she was forced to either say her vows or be thrown into Azkaban. She'd had time to learn the exact law, though, and the law said nothing about copulation, or contraceptives, or even living in the same house—or country—as their partner. It seemed the Ministry just thought marriage would eventually born children.

Hermione, already popping open a hollow piece of the wood wall big enough for her to duck under, would reeducate them on that score.

Beyond, it was barely wide enough to fit her, and she touched the wall, trying to make out in the dark whether she could stand. She felt an indentation in the wall, and ran her hand along it, then above, where she found another one just as wide. A ladder, she thought, exulting. She maneuvered herself through, pulling the wall shut behind her, and began the climb.

That Rodolphus Lestrange had been chosen for her by an impartial judge— _ha!_ —was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because _of course_ he wouldn't want to sully himself with a Mudblood, Harry Potter's best friend to boot, and they could likely make a deal that would leave them both happy. A curse—below, she heard the muffled explosion as the door shattered beneath a curse and fought not to give herself away by crying out—because apparently the lust potion had been stronger for him than it had for her.

Half of her still couldn't believe Rodolphus had been chosen by whoever this impartial judge was, and given the date that Hermione had had to show up at the Ministry or be declared a fugitive. It smacked of a sinister Death Eater plan to her, no matter that Rodolphus had allegedly not fought in the war, and indeed been found half dead of torture and malnourishment in the cellars of this very house, Black Lodge—which had been given to him as a dowry for marrying Bellatrix—after the war was over and Aurors were going through Bellatrix's home.

When the story had appeared in the newspapers, Rodolphus had claimed that Bellatrix had been punishing him on her Lord's orders after he renounced Voldemort as his master. He'd been meant to die there. Veritaserum had proved it, and Kingsley had given him a pardon after also proving that he'd played only a minor role in the torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom. After a few months, beside one attempt to revive the story by Rita Skeeter once he left St. Mungo's after a lengthy stay, he'd disappeared into obscurity.

Until he showed up at the Ministry at the appointed time and signed the papers that declared them married.

Ginny, who had come for moral support, had taken one glance at Rodolphus and said, "At least he's gorgeous for being Death Eater scum."

Hermione was not reassured by his non-Quasimodo appearance.

She reached the end of the ladder and cast a Silencing Charm before she pushed out the door. She thought she had passed the second level and was now on the third. Her nose twitched with the smell of dust and spider webs as she stuck her head out to find out where she was—a hallway of some sort, musty with disuse.

She didn't know how fast Rodolphus could have managed to get there, so she made sure to muffle her grunts as she clambered awkwardly out of the passageway, and flinched at the noise made when she pushed the wall into place. It seemed loud enough to break glass.

Hermione straightened slowly, looking for a window; a way out. She couldn't make it to the front door, she knew. She'd be lost within moments in the unfamiliar house. Here, it was his advantage. Outside, and away from the Anti-Apparition wards she could feel buzzing against her skin, she would have an equal chance of hiding and waiting out the Lust Potion. Then they'd be able to think rationally about this farce of a marriage, and, if he was amicable, set terms they'd both be happy with.

For now, however, she had to get out.

She'd just reached a window and touched the locking charms on it, when another thrill went through her, exquisite in the pleasure it left.

Hermione knew, just as she knew that there were twelve uses of dragon's blood and Sirius Black's Animagus was a dog, that Rodolphus was there.

And before she could do anything but tense, he'd wrapped an arm around her stomach and pulled her back to his chest.

"Running away already, princess?" he murmured, his chest rumbling pleasantly against her back. When she shivered, it was not from fear.

"We need to think," she replied, wondering who had taken her voice and put this husky, breathy one in its place. "The lust potion—"

"Will do," he said simply, and pressed himself further against her, making sure she knew it was working splendidly for him.

It seemed to be working just fine for her, too, if the way her body pressed further into his of its own volition was any indication.

Hermione felt a niggling in her brain as Rodolphus began pressing kisses, light as butterflies, against her neck, hands moving to the front of her robes to unbutton them. A niggling saying she was forgetting something. She had no clue what that could be, and dismissed it entirely when he began to subtly move his pelvis against her arse.

However, the shock of his touch on her bare skin cleared her brain, and she pulled away quickly, her heart in its throat about what she had almost done. Distracted as he was, it was easy to pull away, even easier to turn around and look him in the face.

His dark eyes were burning bright, almost frenzied in their passion. His hair was long, almost as long as Lucius Malfoy's, but where his was light, Rodolphus's was dark—dark just like his intentions. She tamped down on the impulse the potion undoubtedly put into her to run her fingers through it. She had to resist it, and she told him that.

He raised a brow imperiously, an ability she thought the inbreeding had gifted all purebloods.

"Why? Unless you wish to continue without it?"

A large part of her quite logical brain defected and started its own cheer squad at that.

She scowled back at him.

"No. I don't want to do this at all, and neither would you if you could think straight."

Rodolphus shifted. Whether it was the look in his face or his body language, the temperature dropped a few degrees.

"I see your fabled intelligence is just that: a fable," he said, his tone filled with something which was not quite amusement and not quite a snarl. Her anger at the jibe was lost in the fear his eyes inspired in her. He stepped forward, forcing her backwards until the windowsill was digging into her back.

"I—"

"If the idea that this marriage will be on paper only in order to keep the Ministry content has settled into that oversized brain of yours, you're mistaken. I did not live through Bellatrix to be saddled with her Mudblood—pardon me, _Muggleborn_ —double." His hands slid up her arms, and for all his words were rough, they were gentle, teasing. "Besides," he said, lowering his voice until it was sliding through her senses like a snake in dark waters, "I thought losing your magic by not complying with the law would be unfavourable to someone in your position."

Somewhere along the way, her eyes had slipped closed, but with this they opened. Rodolphus sent her a sharp smile, like a shark's.

"Oh, you didn't know? The Repopulation Accord was created by ancient wizards when the witch burnings and plague had almost extinguished our presence entirely. It carries ancient magic in it—magic that, if you do not obey, will cut you from your magic." She was somehow closer to him, though she didn't know how it'd happened. His eyes traveled over her face and his stare, when he reached her eyes, had more sanity in it than the lust potion would've given him. "Maybe you just didn't read the right books. If you had, then you'd know it's the basis of most pureblood contracts."

Her brain tried to run with that fact—she had wondered what their marriage contracts entailed since Hogwarts, and there was very little information on the subject available, the paranoid bastards—but his hands migrated to her hips and effectively stopped her.

The feel of his lips sliding over hers obliterated every thought, every action, everything. A desperate little noise came out of her mouth, bringing heat to her cheeks as she reached up to get more of him, to settle the ache that he had ignited by touching her.

He kissed and caressed and brought her as far as she could go without taking her clothes off. She felt very mussed when he finally pulled away. He looked very dishabille himself, his lips dark and wet, and his eyes running down her body in a way that left her feeling very naked.

Hermione tried to calm her breathing, tried to bring back her No Nonsense mindset, but it just wasn't coming, and her hands were busy pulling at the ties on his trousers, which wasn't very useful to getting rationality back, admittedly.

He pulled her forward abruptly, his hands at her robes. They were gone in barely a heartbeat, fluttering to the ground, and then his hands were pressed against her knicker-clad bum and she was gasping in the madness he created.

Sanity kept trying to reassert itself. Each open-mouthed kiss he pressed against her collarbone, almost desperate, almost pleading, swatted it away like the bothersome fly it was.

He leaned down and mouthed her nipples through the sensible and opposite of sexy bra she'd put on that morning, never intending anyone to see it. It left a wet spot over her nipples that teased delicately at her senses every time she shifted.

How this wizard had ever got so good when, by his own words, Bellatrix had forsaken him, she would never know. Or maybe she'd been bereft of companionship for so long, combined with the weak lust potion, that little was needed to get her wet and moaning.

Only, kissing—delightful as it was—didn't satisfy the potion. Hermione was almost in pain as her fingers fumbled with the ties of his trousers as desperation overtook her.

With a noise halfway between a growl, he swatted her hands away from him, and untied them himself. They hadn't even fallen to his knees before he picked her up and deposited her on the windowsill. One roll of his hips later, knickers pushed aside, he was in and she was stretching around him.

His smile when she whimpered was triumphant and possessive and all male.

They paused for a moment, each taking in the joining spell that adjusted and tightened around their forms, delighting at their consummation, before it dispersed and Rodolphus pulled out and thrust back into her.

Hermione let her head fall back against the windowpane with heavy languor, and figured she'd likely have a headache later. She thought it would be worth it.

Rodolphus's attention never left her. She could feel his eyes, passionate and concentrated solely on her, even though her eyes were closed. What he said earlier came back, and Hermione had the fleeting thought that Bellatrix was much sadder than she'd ever believed for turning her back on him.

Her nails dug into the skin of his arms as his speed increased, and she pulled herself away from the window. It gave her both the added satisfaction of positioning her clit to where he rubbed it _just right_ with every thrust and getting away from the fatal potential of putting her head through the glass. She wanted an orgasm, not a bloodbath.

It brought her close enough to see the look in his eyes. They weren't intense—that was not the right word for it, nowhere close, for it was like staring straight into the sun. She blinked and looked away, expecting to see afterimages.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, bringing them close enough to smother them with heat even though he still had most of his clothes on. Hot as summer and just as tempting to lose herself in.

She moaned and did just that.

The room spun around her, his cock brushing against something inside of her she'd read about but had long thought a myth. Still, he hadn't made a noise. His hands, digging into her thighs and opening her up to him, and his eyes—intense and never wavering—said it all.

His hand slipped from her thigh to her mound, fingers tickling the hair there as he went lower. He honed in on her clit, expertly manipulating it until she thought she'd combust and _oh god_ it had to be the Lust Potion because she'd never had an orgasm this powerful before.

Her fingers scrabbled at the back of his neck, trying to gain a hold on him as his thrusts increased in power, riding the crest of her orgasm, prolonging it and escalating it.

She either blacked out for a moment, or was too lost in her own pleasure to notice, because when she came to, he was panting, his lips pressed against her forehead, as his cock softened inside her.

She wiggled, a little uncomfortable. He inhaled sharply and stilled her hips.

"Sorry," she whispered.

"S'okay." Still, he didn't move.

The silent _where will we go from here?_ slithered between their spent bodies, making it imperative that she didn't look at him for fear of blushing.

She closed her eyes instead and focused on getting her breath back. "You're a Dark wizard and a Death Eater."

"Former," he corrected, though he didn't sound too begrudged. She grunted. "And you're a saviour for the Light." His hand smoothed down the back of her head and he pressed a chaste kiss against her lips before pulling away.

As he helped her down from the windowsill, murmuring something about supper in bed, she thought they might come to an arrangement after all.

*

Hermione opened her eyes and stared into the darkness of her bedroom. It was the fifth morning, and it was finally done. She'd passed through all four dreams and come out unscathed.

She would have to owl Professor Snape. She glanced at the window. She'd wait until daylight and then do it.

She hadn't realized how much his dire warnings had got to her until she raised shaking hands to push her hair out of her face. Her skin was like ice, and sweat lined her brow. She inhaled deeply and wondered if she might pass out.

She took a few moments to screw her head back on right before she spoke to the person lying beside her, whom she knew was awake. She knew him so well.

"It's over."

Shifting, a hesitant touch to her abdomen. She clasped his hand readily and he exhaled his own shaky breath. "Do you remember who?"

She squeezed his hand and tried to reassure herself that this, _this_ touch, was not a dream or vivid hallucination. The callus on his thumb could not be recreated by even the best Potioneer. "Barely," she said. "They're slipping out of my head already, though I'm sure if I was trying hard enough I could recall at least one. Professor Snape said I should be able to."

"Convenient," he murmured, and she laughed even as his mouth covered hers.

His body was a natural weight on top of hers, her curves fitting seamlessly against his hard angles. She sighed as he began bestowing soft, butterfly kisses against her forehead and eyelids.

Hermione threaded her fingers in his hair, marveling that she was here, she was _home_ , and would never wake up from this amazing life.

He rested his head against her collarbone, and her nails scratched lightly against his scalp just the way he liked. She felt his weariness, his fear that she would go to sleep and never wake up, lost fully into her dreams and a man not him. She realized her own fear had left by comforting him.

"Sirius," she whispered, and knew she was home.

"You didn't leave," he said back. His eyelashes brushed against her skin, tickling her. "You weren't tempted."

Her laughter surprised even her. She forced his head up, and though she could only see the outline of his head and not his eyes, she could feel his stare on her, wondering what she would say.

"Snape is brilliant with potions, mind, but he neglected to take one thing into account when he gave me the Dreamer's Potion."

"Just what is that?"

Hermione pressed a kiss against his cheek and whispered in his ear: "I'll always wake up to you."

 _fin._


End file.
